30th May 2019 - Andrew

Then onwards to the large dam in the mountains - this is kind of industrial and fenced off but looks pretty - no chance for us to swim so we head off up a tiny road to find our hike. Not a great place for our tiny toy car. We get it most of the way up the jeep track until I chicken out and park it and walk. We walk across a high plateau listening to the far off bells from local sheep and goats. When we wander off the path we realise that sheep are everywhere - tucked away in shady crevices and rocky protections. One rather small boulder contains eight sheep which spill out as I approach (some of them walking backwards) from a narrow shady crack. They seem very afraid of humans and trot off in a single file line - it seems this mild rocky landscape is also agricultural.

We walk on down the road through a shoulder high wall of stone. (This wall is a mystery, clearly built by enormous human effort, we later hear a few conflicting stories - none make sense - but a waiter told me, ‘Greeks like a story more than anything’). We walk further despite common sense because we need to see around the next corner. We stop in the shade of some trees. drink some and relax, and agree to go back.

Instead we go forward - find the footpath we sought and follow it along the ridge for a while. It is quiet and beautiful out here - our kind of silence. Eventually we cut back towards our car finding our own path among the braken and goat tracks. Then forward to the world of people and a winery. At the winery we are met by Nikola who shows us around - they have a tiy high altitude vineyard and crush the grapes by foot in a traditional granite basin - an impressive object made from five giant granite slabs. From there it is transferred into buried amphoras (about 120l) and left open with the leas for 40 days - then they take out the skins (pips are not crushed by foot so they never go in and the stalks are removed manually at the time of picking). The buried amphora are sealed with wax and left for more time before draining.

30th May 2019 - Cara

The terrace here is green and rocky. The ground is rock, gravel and sand with small dense green bushes everywhere, so you wend your way between bushes (that look like ground cover in some way) and boulders. The plateau is boulder strewn and filled with hidden sheep - the path curves through it. Eventually there are streams of sheep in lines trotting away from us over the ridge. Every now and then one turns and stares somewhat resentfully back at us for disturbing them. We’re not sure where we are going and how far it is, so we keep going out of curiosity for about half an hour (“just see what is over the next rise”) until we come to the stone wall we’ve been told to look out for. It forms a huge rectangle with breaks for the road (the width looked to be about 700m). The wall is very distinctive with large stones artfully placed - almost in simple patterns, and an overhang. Within there were biking trails signposted and some smaller fenced areas that looked like vegetable fields and paddocks. It was very beautiful and so tempting to keep going. We did for a while going around three sides of the walled area - but we could see no end in sight and eventually bundu bashed our way back to the track and retraced our steps home.

It was cool and quiet up here. Again so many goats everywhere among the boulders. Driving up and back down is lovely - a winding road through open forest. Bee hives dotted around and goats but no people except for one caravan we speculate is for the beekeeper / goatherd.

Coming down to the Afianes winery where we have a very different but wonderful experience. Afianes is quiet, only us and Nicola, she is fantastic: knowledgeable, interesting and friendly. We drive upa short gravel driveway and park in front of a small suburban-style house with some tables in front and surrounded by vineyards. We are offered a tour which we take.

The granite footbasin (like a large bath) is used in August when they have harvest festivals and locals /tourists press for them. One japanese lady pressed for eight hours straight. Apparently the Japanese like their wines most. Nicola thinks it is because they are not wine drinkers and so not prejudiced by tradition as the Afianes wine, which harken back to classical times, are not modern-traditional like french wines.

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